How 'bout them "no preconditions" negotiations?

Tim Rutten in the LA Times:

You cannot change the totalitarian mind through dialogue or conversation,
because totalitarianism — however ingenious the superstructure of faux ideas
with which it surrounds itself — is a creature of the will and not the mind.

He’s right - it is a crucial understanding to have when dealing with Ahmadinejad or any other tyrant. After all, Hitler’s greatest propaganda film was entitled Triumph des Willens, or Triumph of the Will, not, “Triumph of Ideas.”